SPACE HISTORY: Magic guides rocket propulsion development

Scientist by day, Satanist by night?"As a disciple of (Aleister) Crowley, (Jack) Parsons was one of southern California's more notorious occultists -- or, some say, Satanists," M.G. Lord wrote in "Astro Turf" (Walker/2005).

"He served as leader of the Agape Lodge of the Church of Thelema, a chapter of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO)."

Parsons, along with Ed Forman and Frank Malina, helped found Aerojet Engineering Corp. to manufacture military Jet-Assisted Take-Off devices during World War II. They had developed JATOs at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology which, in 1944, became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Parsons adhered to Crowley's dictate, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Lord said that included "Christian blasphemy," hedonistic acts and decadent rituals to "incarnate É the Scarlet Woman in the Book of Revelation." Parsons' "investigations into rocket propulsion were guided by 'Magick'" as well.

Crowley, born in 1875, first sought "magical enlightenment in The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn," which brought together "alchemy, tarot, astrology, divination, numerology É and ritual magic," said the website popsubculture.com. "Dracula" author Bram Stoker may have been a member. Crowley, who "adopted 666 as his personal moniker" and called himself "The Beast" (from Revelation), joined the OTO in 1910. He toured the United States and Canada, and detailed his heroin and cocaine addictions in "Diary of a Drug Fiend.

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" The church's website, oto-usa.org, said Crowley "assumed worldwide leadership" in 1922. He is "the author of the 20th century's most influential textbooks on occultism, and as the first Englishman to found a religion -- Thelema -- which is today a recognized faith around the world."

Parsons attended his first OTO "mass" in Hollywood in January 1939, George Pendle wrote in "Strange Angel" (Harcourt/2005.) "Since his childhood attempts to conjure up the devil, Parsons had always been attracted to tales of the hidden, magical mysteries that lurked behind the 'real' world." He wrote gloomy verse: "'The hours darken and the years, Grow black with evil things, And mad machines spawn monstrous fears, That follow sleep with somber wings.' "

On Feb. 14, 1941, oto-usa.org said Parsons and his first wife joined Thelema's Agape Lodge. The next year, at Parsons' urging, the OTO left Hollywood for communal living in a 54-year-old Pasadena mansion. Not long after, Pendle said, an anonymous letter to police stated the residence was home to a "black magic cult," "Crowleyism" and "perversion." It caused the first of many police investigations. The FBI opened "a file on Parsons, detailing his link to a 'love cult.' By the end of his life, the file would stretch to nearly 200 pages."

During the 1942 autumn equinox, Pendle said the housemates "invited friends and colleagues from Caltech and Aerojet to mingle with OTO members in the lavish setting of their new home. It was to be a secular party, with no preaching." But Parsons, fearing knowledge of his lifestyle might affect his security clearance, hid church literature. The party was "a success, ending in a drunken dance" and debauched cavorting around a fountain.

Soon, according to Pendle, rumors abounded of Parsons' "mythic love cult" É linked to women of "loose morals" and the mansion as a "gathering place of perverts." Writer L. Ron Hubbard, who would later found the Church of Scientology, took up residence.

"As the late nights É caught up with (Parsons') early morning starts" at work, Pendle said Parsons' "increasingly disheveled appearance led to much sniggering behind his back at the JPL. É His colleagues were also starting to grow weary of his increasing openness about his private interests." At rocket test launches, "Aerojet workers could clearly hear him chanting É Crowley's pagan 'Hymn to Pan.'" Lord said Cal Tech professor Theodore von K rm n simply described "Parsons as a 'delightful screwball' who 'loved to recite pagan poetry to the sky.'"

As the war escalated, responsibilities at Aerojet intensified. "The Navy was now demanding 20,000 JATOs a month," Pendle said. "The company began seeking outside investors." Parsons was "a loose cannon"; and when "in December 1944, General Tire bought 51 percent of Aerojet's shares" Parsons and Forman -- the latter who participated in rituals -- were not "included" in the staff welcomed to stay.

"Parsons the innovator and explorer was no longer needed," said Pendle, who estimated Parsons was paid $11,000 on his initial $250 investment. A decade-and-a-half later the stock "would have been worth over $12 million." Parsons, however, wouldn't have been around to enjoy the money. On June 17, 1952, chemicals he was mixing at his residence exploded. In spite of his "horrific injuries," Pendle said Parsons stayed conscious. When he died at the hospital, his mother swallowed a bottle of sedatives and took her life.

Toward the end of his own life, Parsons resigned from Thelema and set about crafting his own religion, Pendle said. He called the organization the Witchcraft, and his second wife, Candy, "the witch." He "priced a basic course of instruction at $10." By then, Hubbard had founded Scientology's Dianetics and charged "$600 (for) a 10-day" program.

Of the other two original members of the triumvirate, Malina now lived in Paris. The U.S. had "indicted (him) in absentia for failure to disclose his former Community Party membership on a security form," Pendle said. He painted, worked for UNESCO, and he was rich; he'd never sold his Aerojet stock.

Forman died in 1971. He and Parsons had "tinker(ed) with magic spells as they had with their rockets," Pendle said. After one nighttime ritual, Forman "heard a piercing scream coming from outside his (bedroom) window and É saw a number of horrible entities floating outside his window, what he recognized as banshees." No one else in the house could hear them. Later in Forman's life, "his wife recalled how every now and then he would look anxiously around him and ask whether she could hear a long, persistent wailing sound. She never could."

Editor's note: This is part two of a two-part story. Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and humanities scholar with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Email him at michael.shinabery@state.nm.us.